Our little family

Thursday, July 22, 2010

When Adam and I were first dating, we already knew we wanted to get married, and started talking about what our eventual hopes and dreams were for the future. One thing we both agreed on early on was that someday we really wanted to live out in the country. We wanted to really be away from it all, have a few acres and a big house, preferably one story, with room for all the family to come visit for holidays and stay there forever and have the grandkids come visit. Just something we dreamed about.

Recently we have been house hunting for a second house, we plan on renting out the one we have it's a good size for a rental and we are fortunate enough to actually be able to do that! We are looking for a house that is bigger, that is the main motivation at this point, we know that just being bigger wouldn't be the house we "dream" of but it would be a start, and eventually if we really want the "dream" we'd have to buy again and move again.

Then I found a house. An absolutely amazing house. The kind you see all fixed up on shows on HGTV, the kind that rich people buy and fix up and show off, but not the kind regular people live in right? Except that WE could. We are not rich, and this house is NOT fixed up. But it's everything we dreamed of. It is in the middle of nowhere, it's the capital of the middle of nowhere. :) It's on 3 acres, perfect size to be big but not too much. And it's a very old house that used to be a school when it was originally built in 1925, it has a real feeling of history to it. The classrooms have been turned into bedrooms and each one is just huge! And there are 5 of those HUGE bedrooms. The bathrooms are the one thing that has been updated, so that's nice. It has a huge dining room and table to go with it, and a gigantic great room for company. It really is everything we always said we wanted, it would definitely need some work to truly be the finality of the dream, but it's all there. But now when it comes down to it, it just doesn't feel like we really want to do it. We love it, we love the idea of it, but we're afraid it won't end up being our dream it'll end up being our nightmare. But I guess what I'm wondering here is should we at least try for our dream? I feel like we should, but Adam I think is afraid of getting stuck in something that is going to be a money pit that we can never get out of and that scares him, to be honest it scares me too.

This whole thing just feels like a dream just barely at arm's length away, there are so many dreams we have or want for ourselves or our family, and here's one that with a little reach we might be able to grab onto, but I dont' know if we are even going to try. I guess I'm writing this more for me than anyone else, but dreams, do we ever really get them or are they always just dreams and nothing more?

Friday, July 16, 2010

Last night, Thursday, was probably the worst night i've ever had as a mom, it was just strange!!

For starters Catcher didn't want to go to sleep, I had to let him cry it out for a little while, which did not make our dog, Kolohe very happy. Kolohe paced anxiously outside Catcher's door, every once in a while she'd stop and just stare at the door. I was down the hall trying not to listen to the crying. After about a half hour i guess the dog just couldn't take it anymore. She came down the hall and begged, whined and yelped until i finally got up and went in and picked up Catcher....ok Lassie, calm down sheesh! Once Catcher quieted down, Kolohe flopped down on her fluffy dog bed and heaved a big sigh, apparently she was much more relaxed now. I have never seen her act that way to any of our kids crying, it was very strange. After holding Catcher for about five minutes he finally drifted off and was able to go to sleep.

Now keep in mind that Katie went to bed on time (7 or 7:30ish) and the older two girls went to bed right after getting home from baseball practice, around 8:30 i think, after getting on p.j's and going potty. Their routine was off because they didn't all go to bed at the same time and have singing time, but i do not think it was the cause of the craziness that would ensue. They did have water bottles at the baseball game which were both empty when they returned, so i expected each of them to have a trip to the bathroom during the night, no big deal....or so i thought!

9:30pm Maggie got up to go potty, she went and hopped right back into bed, perfection.

10:45pm i hear a door open down the hall, i go to see who it is. Then the door immediately closes, no one emerged....that's weird.

10:46pm i hear a door open AGAIN, no one emerges, AGAIN, but this time i know who's door it was. It was Maggie and Katie's room. So i open the door to see who's up, it's Maggie, at her dresser....huh? I ask her what she's doing and she admits that she's wet her panties, which surprises me since she just went potty an hour ago....strange, but not uncommon for her. So i tell her to go wait in the bathroom while i check to see if the bed is wet (i dread changing a top bunk in the middle of the night!!!!) Nope, bed is dry....that's good, ladder up to the bed....that's wet...at least it's easier to clean. Then i go check on Maggie in the bathroom, she has her clothes that she peed in....in the toilet??? what??? I ask her what she's doing she says she put her dirty clothes in the hamper....uhm not quite. I figure she must not be very awake, she has walked in her sleep only one other time, but she looks fully awake this time, unlike the sleep walking event in which her eyes were fixed and she didn't respond to me, she was responsive and her eyes looked normal....weird. so i put the now wet pajama pants in the bathtub and told her to sit on the potty to make sure she gets all the rest of the pee out...just in case. So she does. That's when i realize that although she changed her pajama pants, she didn't put any other underwear on and the pj pants were backwords...i suppose that's what happens when you get dressed in the dark. So i get her all straightened out. I decide to finally go laydown in bed, where the husband man is already resting. Just as my head hits the pillow.....

11:08pm Elaine emerges from her room....naked!!! what the???? This is very unusual for her, since she is always picky about what she wears i found it very weird that she would get undressed in the middle of the night. and when i had gone in to put Catcher to sleep, Elaine was still fully dressed in pjs and asleep. I asked her what she needed she simply said she had to go potty....so why the strip show then??? she had no response. Again i wondered if she was doing things in her sleep but she too seemed more awake and normal than any sleep walking episode we've ever had with her. After she used the potty i went in the room with her and found her pjs sitting on the edge of her bed, i convinced her to get redressed and go back to bed.....very very weird. Now i can finally go back to bed.....ahhh, bed, my head has just hit the pillow when....

11:37pm Catcher starts to cry....a very loud bursting kind of cry. That's weird, he usually sleeps six hours after going to bed, then wakes up to eat and goes back to sleep another 4, why would he wake up so soon? He was still fast asleep when i was in there with Elaine only a few moments before....weird weird, even Kolohe jumped up when Catcher started crying. So i decided to go in there and let him nurse anyway, why not...maybe NOW he'll go back to sleep. Sure enough he just wanted to nurse, but he wasn't going right back to sleep, he wanted to sit and smile at me, which is cute, but not when all i wanted to do was finally get to bed! He was finally starting to fall asleep, when Elaine started making noises in her sleep, i could tell she was asleep because i could hear her grinding her teeth...youch! She started wimpering in her sleep, must be having a sad or bad dream, poor kid. Catcher FINALLY falls asleep and i lay him down and walk out. Finally....i'm tired and all kids are asleep....going to bed, my head just hits the pillow when....

12:46pm Elaine shows up at my room, she must be stealthy because the baby monitor is on and i didn't even hear her get up and walk out of the room (she shares a room with Catcher), again, weird. She's at my door and says "I can't sleep." What do you mean you can't sleep, not two minutes ago you were grinding your teeth in REM and now you....can't sleep? Must have been that dream that was making her cry. So i ask her about the dream. She tells me some gibberish about a bathroom and a bad guy in the hallway....which i'll admit kinda freaked me out, but i reassured her it wasn't real and couldn't get her so i go back with her into her room, get her settled into bed and she is asleep before i walk out the door....can't sleep my foot LOL...whatever. NOW i can sleep right?......so my head hits the pillow when.....

Sometime after 1:30am (starting to lose track at this point) Adam starts to talk in his sleep. At first i think he's talk to me, and i try to ask him what? what? because it doesn't make sense, then in between thoughts he grinds his teeth, sure sign he's STILL asleep....ok, just ignore him and GO to sleep! So my head hits the pillow and finally for real i get to fall asleep.....until....

2:30am Maggie starts to scream....SCREAM! it's coming from her room so i race in to see what's happened, in my mind i'm thinking oh no she tried to climb down the ladder and fell, or she's so tired she can't figure out how to climb down and this time she really has wet the bed....I fling open the door and.......silence. the moment i open the door she stops, again, must have been in her sleep.....our kids have been known to cry in their sleep sometimes, but sheesh all this in one night is really starting to wear on me! She doesn't even look like she even sat up to scream which my sleep screamers usually do, nope, still laying curled up with "Dog" her beloved stuffed toy from a thrift store....I peek in on Katie on the bottom bunk, sprawled out with "dolly" (my kids have such original names huh...lol) laying on top of her....she didn't even wake up from the scream....good.....now i can go back to sleep.....i think i was asleep before my head hit the pillow this time......until.....(yes there's more....it was an insane night!!!)

4:00am...ish....Catcher wakes up AGAIN....are you kidding me????? The thing about hearing the baby cry on the monitor my body gets up and out of bed before my mind even registers what i'm doing, so i stumble down the hall, trip over the dog who sleeps on a bed outside our door, pick myself up and stagger into Catcher's room, where thankfully, as usual, Elaine is sleeping right thru his incesant crying.....I pick him up and nurse him in the comfort of the rocking chair in the room. Their room maybe the tiniest room on the planet for two siblings to share, but at least the rocking chair fits in it, even if a dresser doesn't. That chair is heaven for me, because while he gets his nursing comfort i drift in and out of sleep....waking every few minutes I remember, hey i can't sleep i'm in a chair feeding the baby! Eventually he too falls asleep, but again it takes much longer than normal (normal being less than half an hour to eat and go back to sleep)....so finally i stumble back into bed it's 5:26am....yuck. My head misses the pillow and hits the mattress, who cares..........

here it is 12:30 in the afternoon after the night of hell and i'm trying to stay awake by writing about all of the insanity in my blog. You must understand normally my kids (aside from Catcher since he's still a baby) are the best sleepers on the planet!!! They go to bed between 7 and 7:30pm and i don't hear a peep out of any of them until 7 or 7:30am the following morning....it's fabulous.....last night was just WEIRD i can't say it enough times, the only one who did not act weird, was sweet sleepy Katie, thank goodness, at least someone in the house had a normal night....i hope to never have a repeat of this again or i might boycott parenting for that night and delegate it to daddy....mommy needs to z z z zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thursday, July 08, 2010

We went to the farmer's market in downtown modesto today. "We" being, me and all four little kidlets. Going any where with four kids is a bit of a workout, but the farmer's market can be even worse because there are SO many people there usually. However it is thursday and not saturday so there were a bit less people than the last time we went on a saturday. It doesn't help that Catcher really doesn't like being in his carseat, he much prefers to be in the front carrier and now he's old enough to face out in the front carrier which he loves even more. So i had Maggie and Katie in the double stroller and Catcher in the front carrier on my chest and Elaine was walking next to me. I think i looked like a total circus act because we got stared at like you wouldn't believe LOL. But we made it just fine, Catcher ended up falling asleep in the carrier and both girls in the stroller were VERY well behaved (quite unusual)...Elaine as usual was her wonderfully easy going self.

To begin with we got a GREAT parking spot which almost never happens, it was as close as you could get to the market without parking in it. That made it much easier. Then we walked the full length of the market, and didn't buy anything until we turned around to walk back, that is always what i do because i hate buying something then getting two stalls down and realizing there was something better....so i make a habit of walking the whole thing first then buying on the way back up. So we bought a few small things and just as we were almost back to the car the music caught my attention. There is almost always live music of some kind, and this time it was harp music it was a group of 5 or 6 ladies playing harps and then two who also played the penny whistle (not at the same time as the harp lol) we stopped to enjoy the music when someone said my name...totally catching me off guard. We knew one of the harpists! It was Nina Black, she goes to church with my parents and Adam's parents, i had no idea she played the harp, i knew she played the piano but wow! In between songs they told us that if we hung around for a little while they were going to let everyone have a chance to touch and learn about the harp....a 'harp petting zoo' if you will hehe. So we stayed and listened to several songs, which again, my kids were absolutely wonderful during that. We were there for at least 10 if not 15 minutes, just listening and none of them were antsy about wanting to move on, they all just enjoyed it.

So when they stopped to let everyone check out the harps my girls were so excited to have a chance to try it. Katie was cautious, but Maggie and Elaine ran right over and sat down at a harp and began to play! The great thing about harps is that it doesn't take much to sound really good, so of course the girls just loved it...and so did i. There was a photographer from the Modesto Bee there and he took several shots of my kids playing the harps and asked their names, and told me to keep an eye out for their pics in the Bee. To be honest we don't really read the Bee much, but i might if my kids' pics are in it LOL. Then Nina suggested getting them lessons, i think we'll start with the piano first since we already have one...but i would just LOVE it if any of my kids wanted to learn to play the harp it is such a beautiful instrument.

It really was a great time, and on the way back to the car Elaine asked when she could start taking piano lessons....let the age of music begin!!!

Monday, July 05, 2010

So this was our first major holiday with our newest member of the family, number four....Catcher.

He slept thru most of the night, but the fun thing was watching how much Katie had grown up since last years fourth of July. Last year she was quite afraid of fireworks and wanted to be held the whole time. This year, until she fell asleep at the end of the longest fireworks show EVER, she was sitting in her own little chair cheering and ooohing and ahhhing over every firework. She even did sparklers this year too.

This was probably the biggest year for the fourth of July i can remember. To start it off we were at Adam's parent's house, which when all his sisters and their families are there, is big to start with. THEN add in his grandparents and Aunt Leesa, and her daughter, Killian. THEN add in Matt's parents and neices, and that was just for the BBQ and hanging out....once the fireworks began even more people came! The whole of the front yard was bursting with excited children, teenagers and adults....not to mention JT and Catcher, the two littlest members of the clan. It was a sight to see!

The Husband Man, Adam and his best friend Matt put on quite a fireworks show for the crowd. They had a wooden board between two ladders so that all the fireworks could be lit nice and high creating large fountains of orange, green, red and blue that were just spectacular. Then there were the sparklers! That was something i will never forget, all the kids, young and old lined up on the sidewalk to have their sparklers lit. Katie was the littlest to do sparklers this year and she did quite well, her little face was aglow at the excitement of a glittering wand to wave (under close supervision by aunt Cara ....thanks!)

Then there was the "snap" show....lol. Matt and Adam let the kids do snaps in between lighting fireworks then later on in the show discovered another box. Matt asked Jacob (the oldest cousin at almost 8 years old) to come stand on the sidewalk, he led him to a specific spot then yelled FIRE! At which point Adam threw a huge handful of snaps at Jacobs feet which popped and sparked, Jacob, with his Jedi-esque reflexes, jumped and rolled to the side, landing safely at his parents feet. It was a hillarious sight to see and everyone cheered!

Every year it seems like the fireworks end too early, but this year was certainly no ordinary year. I do not know the specific number of fireworks purchased for this enormous show but it was over 2 hours of continuous fireworks!!!! I have never seen anything like it. Each was placed and lit by Adam and Matt, often more than one at a time with them being lit simultanously by them both in an epic battle to see who's was biggest or longest.... (insert inuendo here!) That also made for a show for the kids and many laughs for the adults :)

I have to say, as a parent one of the greatest joys I have is seeing my kids have fun, and this was certainly a day that will glow in my memory as brightly as the many sparkling displays of pyrotechnics we witnessed for our first Fourth with Four.....thank you to everyone who made it the most memorable yet!!!!

The Husband Man

He's just a regular hero around these parts...he's "The Husband Man!" Life with this many little ones wouldn't be possible without a super hero around. He's a provider, a hard worker, an amazing husband, and "The World's Greatest Dad" which would still be true even if his shirt didn't agree.